User:M wei MGCR331

'''The Mobile Life - Issues in Work-Life Balance'''

It was 8pm on the Thanksgiving night; Jack was having dinner with his family: the turkey was well-toasted, the pumpkin pie was delicious, grandma’s home-made ham was everyone’s favorite as usual, and the red wine was tasteful. Everyone was talking, laughing and enjoying the night. It was such a harmonious moment but all in a sudden, Jack’s mobile phone rang; it was an emergency call from his project manager that the company’s website had been hacked that as the duty officer Jack had to go back to work on the problem……

Doesn’t it sound familiar to people who have a cell-phone from work and have to carry it 24-hour-turn-on in case of any emergency calls? Is it annoying and frustrating when we are enjoying our private time with our families and friends? Is our personal life affected negatively by our mobile phones?

Most of us may answer ‘yes’, as they have seen, heard and even experienced being intruded privacy by work-related calls. This may be true for IT jobs, but for many jobs, we don’t have to let technology crash the work-home barrier. Actually, the technology is assisting us to get connected. A recent research by the Australian Mobile Telecommunication Association (AMTA) discloses some interesting findings: only 4% of the respondents (2185 individuals in total) report that the mobile phone has a negative impact on their work-life balance. A high proportion of respondents (45%) say that it has had NO effect, and that half of the respondents believe that the mobile helps them to balance their family and working lives. Actually, as revealed in the Associations’ report, the work-related calls are mostly happened in standard working hours, increasing sharply after 7am with a small lunch time dip and falling sleepily after 5pm. In fact, according to AMTA’s report, the volume of calls to family and friends exceeds work-related calls at any time of day, which implies that the main purpose of the mobile phone is for social contact including staying connected with friends and families.

We shouldn’t neglect the convenience of technology. A growing number of companies now offer their services online, making many time-consuming chores a thing of the past. Banking, paying bills, and grocery shopping can all be done electronically, cutting stress and freeing-up valuable time. Organizations and employers may start working on encouraging work from home by providing the employees a laptop, paying the internet service charges and providing a mobile phone from which the employees can access their office mails.

Work-life balance is important to everybody, as it enables us to improve the quality of our lives. It provides us the possibility of working practically and being fresh enough to give all our need to both work and home without jeopardizing one for the other. Work-life balance isn’t only for families or working parents and nor is it about working less. It’s about working ‘smart’. So, why shouldn’t we take good use of the advancing technology?

Reference: 1. The Impact of the Mobile Phone on Work/Life Balance Preliminary report http://polsc.anu.edu.au/staff/wajcman/pubs/Report_on_Mobiles_and_Work_Life_Balance_June_07.pdf

2. http://participatecontributelearn.blogspot.com/2007/07/impact-of-mobile-phone-on-worklife.html

3. http://bangalore.metblogs.com/2006/08/24/bangalores-work-life-balance/

4. Ten tips for Better Work-Life Balance http://newsletter.mycareer.com.au/general/feb08/job-update/section/10-tips-for-better-work-life-balance.aspx